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4/ 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN 



AND 



A TALK ON BOOKS 



BY 



HENRY DRUMMOND, F.R.S.E., F.G.S., L.L.D 

AUTHOR OF " NATURAL LAW IN THK SPIRITUAL WORLD, 1 ' 
AND "THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD." 



WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR BY 

JAMES MacARTHUR. 



•'RIGHT 

IIJI 3 109] 



^w 1 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN KNOX & CO., Publishers, 

203 West Twenty-Third Street, 







Copyright, 1891, by 
JOHN KNOX & CO. 




^96 



°279 5( 



"What is a Christian?" — the question 
which gives title to the first of these ad- 
dresses — is answered by Professor Drum* 
mond with that felicity of manner peculiar 
to himself. It contains all the qualities of 
his other writings — their modernness, their 
keen perception and lucid statement of liv- 
ing issues, their nobility of feeling. 

"A Talk on Books*' contains wise counsel 
on the subject of forming a library, and on 
choosing the best books essential to self- 
education and relaxation of the mind. It is 
interlarded with pleasant reminiscences and 
interesting autobiographical matter, and is 
written in the delightful and fascinating 
style for which Mr. Drummond is famous. 



These addresses have been in part com- 
piled from stenographic reports, and are 
now published for the first time. 

The biographical sketch is written by one 
who has been closely acquainted with the 
movements of Professor Drummond in Scot 7 
land, thereby affording the reader an authen- 
tic and personal account of his career. 

JOHN KNOX & CO. 



CONTENTS 



Portrait, 
Preface, 

Biographical Sketch, 
What is a Christian, 
A Talk on Books, 



page 
frontispiece 



5 

9 

3i 

48 




X 



PROF. HENRY DRUMMOND 

F.R.S.E., F.G.S., L.L.D. 

"Do YOU see that tall, stalwart, well-knit 
figure in front of us?" observed a friend 
to me a few years ago, as we paced along 
one of Glasgow's fine promenades, "well, 
that is the famous author of 'Natural Law 
in the Spiritual World/ " This was my first 
glimpse of the man who had but a few 
weeks previous been little recked of out- 
side his little circle in Scotland, and whose 
name has since been trumpeted all the 
world over. 



IO WHAT IS A 



What I saw was a large-browed and keen- 
eyed man with delicate features, alert in 
manner, youthful in appearance and dressed 
to fastidiousness, with his hands buried in 
the pockets of a newmarket. His vigorous 
step had in it the promise of work still to 
be done ; and the breadth of his shoulder 
spoke of masculine strength and vast powers 
of endurance. He wore the look of a much 
travelled man — an impression also conveyed 
in the reading of his books. In actual travel- 
ling he has seen America, and studied the 
geology of the Rocky Mountains ; and, not 
content with a feat which is now compar- 
atively easy to every man who has a little 
leisure on his hands and some money in 
his pocket, he has paid a visit for scien- 
tific purposes to the lakes district of Africa, 



CHRISTIAN. II 



and has been in Australia stirring up the 
life of the universities. His mental range 
partakes of the physical type ; intellectually 
he is by training a scientific observer, and 
by profession a lecturer on natural science; 
while his own temperament and his long 
connection with the theological college of 
the Free Church in Glasgow, Scotland, have 
also led him to study, not only the theory 
of religion, but the practical methods of 
working out the religious life in the present 
day. Like Professor Bryce, to whom 
America is also deeply indebted, Professor 
Drummond is a wanderer by instinct, and 
the spirit of daring and adventure inherent 
in the race to which he belongs has entered 
largely into his nature. Unlike some trav- 
ellers, he is the most sociable of men, and 



12 WHAT IS A 



just as the style of his writing has capti- 
vated thousands by its happy combination 
of qualities, so the man has exercised a 
charm for years over many of the most 
thoughtful youths of Scotland ; and the 
same elements of conquest have won for 
him the admiration and regard of large 
audiences wherever he has appeared in 
public. 

The events which give romantic interest 
and public importance to any man's career, 
and upon which the eyes of all men are 
riveted, are, in the present instance, made 
conspicuous by their absence. The whole 
English-speaking race rings to the name of 
Professor Drummond, but few can relate 
any fact of his life outside of his public 
appearances. The reason is not far to 



CHRISTIAN. 13 



seek. This singular ignorance, where indif- 
ference is the last reason for it, is not so 
much to be attributed to the extreme modesty 
or retirement of Mr. Drummond, but mainly 
because the " happenings " or occurrences 
which afford material to the biographer are 
lacking. The lines of his life have been 
set in pleasant places, and the even cur- 
rent of his days records a career of unin- 
terrupted flow and delicious calm almost 
always denied to the successful candidates 
for fortune's smile and public favor. Few 
men have tasted more of the sweets of life 
than Professor Drummond. The sunshine of 
prosperity has beamed on him with lavish 
effulgence. He has had the friendship of 
the greatest of his time, and he has not 
lacked for the affection and sympathy which 



14 WHAT IS A 



shines clearest when the sky is dark and 
lowering. His own experience of life can 
be read in the light of his teaching. The 
audience he addresses himself to is the 
measure of his own verification of life. 
They are those " for whom the past is not 
deeply stained, for whom the future lies in 
a tender haze. Of the mystery and tragedy 
of the weary, evil, guilty world they know 
little. They have yet to understand the 
hollowness of life, the evanescence of sun- 
shine."' Of " poortith cauld," the inheritance 
of so many ot his sturdy Scottish brothers 
who have struggled to distinction above 
their fellows, Professoi Drummond has known 
nothing , of failure, disappointment, weak- 
ness, sorrow, less than most. 

Henry Drummond was born forty years 



CHRISTIAN. 15 



ago in Stirling, not far from Scotland's 
famous battle-field at Bannockburn. His 
father, who lived to be an octogenarian, died 
two years ago, lamented by, not only his 
townsfolk, but by many eminent men in the 
Scottish Church who bore witness to his 
sterling character and to the great service 
he had rendered religion by the diffusion of 
Christianity. " Drummond's Tract Society " 
has been heard of beyond the Border ; but 
few who took notice of it, associated its 
management with "our Drummond." Henry 
was educated at Edinburgh University, 
where he graduated, and thereafter passed 
through the Free Church Divinity School 
in that city. He was duly ordained a min- 
ster of that religious body, but the prefix 
" Reverend " has had to give place to " Pro- 



l6 WHAT IS A 



fessor," and Mr. Drummond himself has 
always given the preference to the latter. 

In the year 1873, when he was finishing 
his seven years* course at the University, 
Mr. D. L. Moody, the American evangelist 
arrived in Edinburgh in the line of his 
Scottish tour. There is no doubt that Mr. 
Moody's strong personality and peculiar in- 
fluence made a striking impression on young 
Drummond, who was at that time seriously 
bent on devoting himself with greater zeal 
and purpose to aggressive Christian work. 
Carrying a number of students with him 
in his new-born enthusiasm, he threw him- 
self heartily into mission work with Mr. 
Moody. This keen observer of men, with 
that wise discernment which has character- 
ized his choice of the right man for the 



CHRISTIAN. 17 



right place in many centres of his evange- 
listic activity, soon had the young student 
brought to the front as a representative of 
young men ; and in many of the great 
meetings held ;hroughout the country dur- 
ing the ensuing months, Mr. Drummond was 
the right hand of Mr. Moody in his labors 
among young men. 

It will be remembered that it was the 
persuasive power of another American 
evangelist, Mr. Pierson, that decided the 
heroic young Mackay to enter the African 
missionfield ; and Professor Drummond, while 
in this country with Mr. Moody at Chatau- 
qua was not slow to confirm the witness 
of this period in his life to the forma- 
tive and decisive influence of the evange- 
list in guiding him to the leadership of 



1 8 WHAT IS A 



the best thought and intelligence of the 
youth of Scotland. For, although he pur- 
sued his work as a missionary, first in the 
Island of Malta and latterly in Glasgow 
for some time after receiving his license, he 
ultimately found his happiest sphere of 
activity, and that for which his peculiar 
gifts qualified him among the students in 
Edinburgh. His distinctive and largest work 
indeed, is that of which the world hears 
least. Sunday after Sunday he has been 
engaged for years throughout the Univers- 
ity session at Edinburgh in religious work 
with the students, and the meetings have 
been attended by not less than five to 
seven hundred students. Whether in Edin* 
burgh or in America or Australia, he has 
been recognized as the exponent — call it 



CHRISTIAN. 19 



prophet if you will — of a new religious 
movement in the universities of the old 
and new worlds. With the growth of recent 
interest in the social problem has developed 
a larger interest in the sociology of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ, and in touch with 
this movement has sprung up the " Univers- 
ity Settlement" scheme, which provides for 
the settlement of companies of young men 
from the universities among the poor, where 
they combine Christian living with high think- 
ing and specific study, endeavoring by all 
personal means to influence the community 
in which they are stationed through the 
Christ-force of their daily lives. In his 
address on " What is a Christian?" Protessor 
Drummond has described in a felicitous 
manner the working methods of this scheme 



20 WHAT IS A 



in Edinburgh, with which he continues to 
be closely connected. The Professor is in 
his natural element when among the stu- 
dents, and accordingly his care and atten- 
tion have been chiefly devoted to their 
interests. He wields a unique influence 
over them, and wisely limits himself to this 
class, rarely speaking in public, except to 
address the students, or on such an occa- 
sion as the mustering of the Boys' Brigade 
in Glasgow a few years ago to listen to 
his words of counsel. But he has a large 
following, and his disciples are to be found 
everywhere and among all sorts and con- 
ditions of men. For, although his addresses 
are all more or less the result of contri- 
butions to the highly-privileged class of 
students, their catholic and essentially 



CHRISTIAN. 21 



Christian treatment of the common truths 
and wayside thoughts of religious experi- 
ence have made them the property of all 
religious people. 

What remains to be narrated of Mr. 
Drummond's career is already public fact. 
In 1883 he went to the Dark Continent, 
partly on behalf of the Lakes Navigation 
Company, to study the geology and the 
botany of the country, and shortly after 
his return he was appointed to the Chair 
of Natural Science in Glasgow. This chair 
is one peculiar to Scottish theological semi- 
naries, and does not exist in America; in- 
deed, nowhere is scientific study pursued, 
with such assiduity and research as in the 
divinity schools of Scotland. In 1887 he 
came to America and figured prominently 



22 WHAT IS A 



at the annual Chatauqua meetings. At 
Northfield he delivered in its first form the 
now famous address on "The Greatest 
Thing in the World." He also lectured on 
his travels in Africa, and subsequently he 
enlarged and revised these lectures, and 
included a highly interesting and ingenious 
essay on "The White Ant** of Africa, 
originally issued in Good Words. The whole 
appeared in book-form under the title 
" Tropical Africa," a cheaper and abridged 
edition of which has been issued entitled 
" Nyassa-Land." In this unique publican 
tion, "worth many an octavo volume of 
travel," Mr. Drummond as an author, ap. 
pears in his best and happiest mood, all 
the literary qualities of his brilliant mind, 
all the graces of his winning style, are 



CHRISTIAN. 23 



found in its pages — nothing like it, in point 
of fact, has been written on the same 
theme. Last year Australia was favored 
with his latest " peregrinity," as Carlyle 
Would put it, in answer to a pressing invi- 
tation from some of the students of the 
Australian universities. 

During the past winter months the stu- 
dents of Glasgow and Edinburgh have still 
had the genial presence of the gifted 
scholar and scientist among them. On week 
days he is to be found in Glasgow teach- 
ing science, and on Sundays he is in 
Edinburgh preaching Christ to the students. 
He has the gift of utterance as well as of 
writing; and his tall lithe form, his easy 
manner, his clear voice under full control, 
his thoughtful attitude and fresh statement 



24 WHAT IS A 



of truth make him acceptable as a teacher 
to young men. His spoken style is terse, 
nervous, restrained, always interesting and, 
like his written style, flooding his brilliant 
sentences with a stream of sunshine. 
The burden of his message is always 
the same, it never varies. " To be- 
come like Christ," he says "is the only 
thing in the world worth caring for, the 
thing before which every ambition of man 
is folly and all lower achievement vain. 
Those only who make this quest the 
supreme desire and passion of their lives 
can even begin to hope to reach it . . . The 
Image of Christ that is forming within us — 
that is life's one charge. Let every project 
stand aside for that." In such words is 
summed up the essence of his teaching. As he 



CHRISTIAN. 25 



said to the students in Edinburgh one day, 
"Christianity is just the school of Christ. 
Christians are just those who have caught 
Christ's ideas, and have vowed allegiance to 
His person, and who 3 eek to spread abroad 
His teaching of love one to another, and to 
humanity." The relation of the following in- 
cident sums up perhaps better than any- 
thing else Professor Drummond's attitude to 
the religious world. When he left Japan 
the native minister gave him a message for 
Europe, It was brief, but pregnant: "Send 
us no more doctrines ; we are tired of them ; 
send us Christ." In that sentence, not 
merely Japan, but the whole world ex- 
presses its deepest need. 

We quote the following able analysis of 
the elements of Professor Drummond's 



26 WHAT IS A 



power, from the pen of a profound scholar 
and divine. " He has a certain magnetic 
quality, both as a writer and as a speaker, 
but it can be analysed. He has a style — 
not a style to move " the lonely rapture 
of lonely minds," but one which arrests 
the busy crowd — clear, pleasant, flowing 
with faint hues of poetry. He is never 
allusive, superior, strained ; he does not 
condescend ; he is always himself, a courte- 
ous, unaffected gentleman, with a sincere 
respect for his audience. He is an adept 
at the art of translating scientific ideas into 
common English, and can impart the touch 
that redeems the familiar from platitude. 
Then he has a message, a secret. No one 
can hope long to touch men by mere 
cleverness or rhetorical skill. Can he guide 



CHRISTIAN. 27 



me? comes to be the question at last. 
Those who find the right road from the 
blows they receive on the right hand and 
the left when deviating into wrong roads, 
are grateful for a wisdom which comes 
more easily, and Mr. Drummond is noth- 
ing if not practical. He has a system as 
well as a message. The man of one idea 
is not so powerful as he used to be. The 
age dreads nothing so much as the Bore, 
and it does not always discriminate. But 
a man with a system — provided he is not 
continually rattling the skeleton- is the man 
of influence. A brilliant preacher of the day 
humorously compares his sermons to little 
heaps of earth flung up by a mole ; they 
make a track. In the same way Mr. 
Drummond's ideas have a continuity. That 



28 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN. 

one-half of his scheme of thought is studi- 
ously kept out of sight does not lessen the 
interest taken in it, and, like all men whose 
ideas are coherent, he gives the impression 
of being at peace in thought." 

The successor of " Natural Law in the 
Spiritual World " has still to make its ap. 
pearance and there is reason to believe it 
will not be long delayed. Just before 
embarking for Australia, Mr. Drummond 
confided to some of his friends that he 
proposed in a new book to set forth 
Christianity in the light of evolution. The 
religious thought of the world is ripe for 
such a work, it will now at least be met 
with an open mind — his previous study in 
this department having prepared the way 
for this new departure. 

James MacArthur. 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN 






" A Christian is a man to whom Jesus Christ intrusts 
all his fellowmen ; nothing can be foreign to him which 
concerns any one of his brethren/'— Henri Perreyve* 

"Thou seemest human and divine, 

The highest, holiest manhood thou j 
Our wills are ours, we know not how, 
Our wills are ours to make them thine." 

— In Memoriatn, Tennyson. 

" I am the way, the truth and the life.'' 

— St John. 




WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN 

YOUNG men are learning to respect more 
perhaps than ever young men have done 
the word " Christian." I have seen the 
time when it was synonymous with can 
and unreality and strained feeling and 
sanctimoniousness. But although that day is 
not quite passed yet, it is passing. I heard 
this definition the other day of a Christian 
man by a cynic — "A Christian man is a 
man whose great aim in life is a selfish 
desire to serve his own soul, who, in order 
to do that, goes regularly to church, and 



32 WHAT IS A 



whose supreme hope is to get to Heaven 
when he dies." This reminds one of Pro- 
fessor Huxley's examination paper in which 
the question was put — "What is a lobster?" 
One student replied that a lobster was a red 
fish, which moved backwards. The examiner 
noted that this was a very good answer, 
but for three things. In the first place a 
lobster was not a fish; second it was nof- 
red ; and third it did not move backwards- 
If there is anything that a Christian is not, 
it is one who has a selfish desire to save 
his own soul. The one thing which Christ- 
ianity tries to extirpate from a man's 
nature is selfishness, even though it be the 
losing of his own soul. 

Christianity, as we understand it from 
Christ, appeals to the generous side of a young 



CHRISTIAN. 33 



man's nature, and not to the selfish side. 
In the new version of the New Testament 
the word " soul" is always translated in 
this connection by the word "life.'' That 
marks a revolution in popular theology, and 
it will make a revolution in every Young 
Man's Christian Association in the country 
where it comes to be seen that a man's 
Christianity does not consist in merely sav- 
ing his own soul, but in sanctifying and 
purifying the lives of his fellowmen. We 
are told in the New Testament that Christ- 
ianity is leaven, and " leaven " comes from 
the same root word as lever, meaning that 
which raises up, which elevates ; and a 
Christian young man is a man who raises 
up or elevates the lives of those round 
about him. We are also told that Christ- 



34 WHAT IS A 



ianity is salt, and salt is that which saves 
from corruption. What is it that saves the 
life of the world from being utterly rotten, 
but the Christian elements that are in it ? 
Mathew Arnold has said, " Show me ten 
square miles in any part of the world out- 
side Christianity where the life of man and 
the purity of women are safe, and I will 
give Christianity up." In no part of the 
world is there any such ten square miles 
outside Christianity. Christian men are the 
salt of the earth in the most literal sense. 
They, and they alone, keep the world from 
utter destruction. 

I want to say a word here about the 
Young Men's Christian Associations. Many 
have criticised them. They have been the 
target for a great deal of abuse. Many of 



CHRISTIAN. 35 



the best young men have sneered at them, 
and turned up their noses at them, and de- 
nounced them. I am speaking with absolute 
sympathy and respect, and even enthusiasm 
for Young Men's Christian Associations. But 
I will turn for one instant upon those men 
who turn against them, and tell them that it 
is not breadth that leads them to do that, but 
what one might call the narrowness of breadth 
— that breadth which denounces intolerance, 
and which is itself too intolerant to tolerate 
intolerance. And, as someone says, it is easier 
to criticise the best thing superbly than to 
do the smallest thing indifferently. 

It is very easy to criticise the methods and 
aims and men of the Young Men's Christ- 
ian Associations. If, instead of looking on 
and criticising those who know a thing or 



36 WHAT IS A 



two, those who think they are wiser, and 
that they have the whole truth, would 
throw themselves in among others and 
back them and try to work alongside of 
them, they would get perhaps their breadth 
tempered by earnestness and by zeal, be- 
cause the narrow man has much to con- 
tribute to the Christian cause, perhaps more 
than the broad man. But it needs all kinds 
of people to make a world ; it needs all 
kinds of people to make a church, and 
every type of young men a Christian As- 
sociation ; and the greatest mistake of all 
is to have every man stamped in the same 
stamp, so that if you met him in a railway 
train one hundred miles off, you would know 
him as a Y. M. C. A. man. I would like 
to find many who would not wear the badge 



CHRISTIAN. 37 



so pronouncedly, that everyone should know 
them at a glance. 

There is only one great character in the 
wOrld that can really draw out all that is 
best in men. He is so far above all others 
in influencing men for good that He stands 
alone. That man was the founder of Christ- 
ianity. To be a Christian man is to have 
that character for our ideal in life, to live 
under its influence, to do what He would 
wish us to do, to live the kind of life he 
would have lived in our house, and had 
He our day's routine to go through, It 
would not, perhaps, alter the forms of our 
life, but it would alter the spirit and aims 
and motives of our life, and the Christian 
man is he who in that sense lives under 
the influence of Jesus Christ. 



33 WHAT IS A 



Now, there is nothing that a young man 
wants for his ideal that is not found in 
Christ. You would be surprised when you 
come to know who Christ is, if you have 
not thought much about it, to find how He 
will fit in with all human needs, and call 
out all that fs best in man. The highest 
and manliest character that ever lived was 
Christ. One incident I often think of and 
wonder. You remember, when He hung 
upon the cross, there was handed up to 
Him a vessel containing a stupefying drug, 
supplied by a kind society of ladies in 
Jerusalem, who always sent it to criminals 
when being executed, And that stupefying 
drug was handed up to Christ's lips. And 
we read, " When He tasted thereof He 
would not drink." I have always thought 



CHRISTIAN. 39 



that one of the most heroic actions I have 
ever read of. But that was only one very 
small side of Christ's nature. He can be 
everything that a man wants. Paul tells 
us that if we live in Christ we are 
changed into His image. All that a man 
has to do, then, to be like Christ, is 
simply to live in friendship with Christ, 
and the character follows. 

But it is only one of the aims of Christ- 
ianity to make the best men. The next 
thing Christ wants to do is to make the 
best world. And He tries to make the 
best world by setting the best men loose 
upon the world to influence it and reflect 
Him upon it. In 1874 a religious move- 
ment began in Edinburgh University among 
the students themselves, that has since 



40 WHAT IS A 



spread to some of the best academic in- 
stitutions in America. The students have 
a hall, and there they meet on Sundays, or 
occasionally on week days, to hear 
addresses from their professors, or from out- 
side eminent men, on Christian topics. 
There is no committee ; there are no rules ; 
there are no reports. Every meeting is 
held strictly in private, and any attempt to 
pose before the world is sternly dis- 
couraged. No paragraphs are put into the 
journals ; no addresses are reported. The 
meetings are private, quiet, earnest, and 
whatsoever student likes may attend them. 
That is all. It is not an organization in 
the ordinary sense, it is a "leaven." In 
all the schools it is the best men who 
take most part in the movement, and 



CHRISTIAN. 41 



among the schools it is the medical side 
which furnishes the greatest number of 
students to the meetings. Some of the 
most zealous have taken high honors in 
their examinations, and some have been 
in the first class of university athletes. 
It is not a movement that has laid hold 
of weak or worthless students whom nobody 
respects, but one that is maintained by 
the best men in every department. The 
first benefit is to the students themselves. 
Take Edinburgh, with about 4,000 students 
drawn from all parts of the world, and 
living in rooms with no one caring for 
them. Taken away from the moral sup- 
port of their previous surroundings, they 
went to the bad in hundreds. It is now 
found that through this movement they 



42 WHAT IS A 



work better, and that a greater percent- 
age pass honorably through the university 
portals into life. The religious meetings, it 
is to be observed, are never allowed to 
interfere with the work of the students. 
The second result is to be seen in what 
are called university settlements. A few 
men will band themselves together and 
rent a house in the lower parts of the 
city and live there. They do no preaching, 
no formal evangelization work; but they 
help the sick and they arrange smoking 
concerts, and contribute to the amusement 
of their neighbors. They simply live with 
the people, and trust that their example 
will produce a good effect. Three years 
ago they printed and distributed among 
themselves the following " Programme of 



CHRISTIAN. 43 



Christianity :"— « To bind up the broken 
hearted, to give liberty to the captives, to 
comfort all that mourn, to give beauty for 
ashes, the garment of praise for the spirit 
of heaviness." I suppose there are few of 
us with broken hearts, but there are other 
people in the world besides ourselves, and 
underneath all the gaiety of the city there 
is not a street in which there are not 
men and women with broken hearts. Who 
is to help these people? No one can lift 
them up in any way except those who 
are living the life of Christ, and it is 
their privelege and business to bind up 
the broken hearted. 

I want to urge the claims of the Christ- 
ian ministry on the strength and talent 
of our youth. I find a singular want of 



44 WHAT IS A 



men in the Christian ministry, and I think 
it would be at least worth while for some 
of you to look around, to look at the 
men who are not filling the churches, to 
look at the needs of the crowds who 
throng the streets, and see if you could 
do better with your life than throw your- 
self into that work. The advantage of the 
ministry is that a man's whole life can be 
thrown into the carrying out of that pro- 
gramme without any deduction. Another 
advantage of the ministry is that it is so 
poorly paid that a man is not tempted to 
cut a dash and shine in the world, but 
can be meek and lowly in heart, like his 
Master. It is enough for a servant to be 
like his master, and there is a great attrac- 
tion in seeking obscurity, even isolation, il 



CHRISTIAN. 45 



one can be following the highest ideal. 
With regard to the question, how you 
shall begin the Christian life, let me 
remind you that theology is the most 
abstruse thing in the world, but that prac- 
tical religion is the simplest thing. If any 
of you want to know how to begin to be 
a Christian, all I can say is that you 
should begin to do the next thing you 
find to be done as Christ would have 
done it. If you follow Christ the "old man" 
will die of atrophy, and the "new man" 
will grow day by day under His abiding 
friendship. 




No book is worth anything which is not worth much 
nor is it serviceable until it has been read, and re-read, 
and loved, and loved again ; and marked so that you 
can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier 
can seize the weapons he needs in any armory, or a 
housewife bring the piece she needs from her store. 

—John Ruskin. 

Except a living man, there is nothing more wonder- 
ful than a book ! — A message to us from the dead — 
from human souls whom we never saw, who 
lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away, and yet these, or 
those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, 
comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. 

— Chas. Kingsley. 

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen ; 
the more select the more enjoyable. 

— A. Branson Alcott. 



A TALK ON BOOKS 




A TALK ON BOOKS 

My object at this time is to give 
encouragement and help to the " duffers," 
the class of " hopeful duffers." Brilliant 
students have every help, but second-class 
students are sometimes neglected and dis- 
heartened. I have great sympathy " with 
the duffers," because I was only a second- 
rate student myself. The subject of my 
talk with you is 

BOOKS 
A gentleman in Scotland who has an 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 49 

excellent library has placed on one side of 
the room his heavy sombre tomes, and 
over those shelves the form of an owl. 
On the other side of the room are arranged 
the lighter books, and over these is the 
figure of a bird known in Scotland as "the 
dipper." This is a most sensible division. 
The " owl books " are to be mastered, — 
the great books, such as Gibbon's "Rome," 
Butler's "Analogy," Dorner's "Person of 
Christ," and text-books of philosophy and 
science. Every student should master one 
or two, at least, of such "owl books," to 
exercise his faculties, and give him con- 
centrativeness. I do not intend to linger 
at this side of the library, but will cross 
over to the "dipper books,'' which are for 



50 A TALK 



occasional reading — for stimulus, for guidance, 
recreation. I will be 

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 

When I was a student in lodgings I 
began to form a library, which I arranged 
along the mantleshelf of my room. It did 
not contain many books; but it held as 
many as some students could afford to 
purchase, and if wisely chosen, as many as 
one could well use. My first purchase was 
a volume of extracts from Ruskin's works* 
which then in their complete form were 
very costly. Ruskin taught me to use my 
eyes. Men are born blind as bats or 
kittens, and it is long before men's eyes 
are opened , some men never learn to see 
as Jong as they live. I often wondered, if 



ON BOOKS. 51 



there was a Creator, why He had not 
made the world more beautiful. Would 
not crimson and scarlet colors have been 
far richer than green and browns? But 
Ruskin taught me to see the world as it 
is, and it soon became a new world to 
me, full of charm and loveliness. Now I 
can linger beside a ploughed field and 
revel in the affluence of color and shade 
which are to be seen in the newly turned 
furrows, and I gaze in wonder at the 
liquid amber of the two feet of air. above 
the brown earth. Now the colors and 
shades of the woods are a delight, and at 
every turn my eyes are surprised at fresh 
charms. The rock which I had supposed 
to be naked I saw clothed with lichens — 
patches of color — marvellous organisms, frail 



$2 A TALK 



as the ash of a cigar, thin as brown paper, 
yet growing and fructifying in spite of 
wind and rain, of scorching sun and biting 
frost. I owe much to Ruskin for teaching 
me to see. 

Next on my mantelshelf was Emerson. 
I discovered Emerson for myself. When I 
asked what Emerson was, one authority 
pronounced him a great man ; another as 
confidently wrote him down a humbug. So 
I silently stuck to Emerson, Carlyle I 
could not read. After wading through a 
page of Carlyle I felt as if I had been 
whipped. Carlyle scolded too much for my 
taste and he seemed to me a great man 
gone delirious. But in Emerson I found 
what I would fain have sought in Carlyle; 
and, moreover, I was soothed and helped. 



ON BOOKS. 53 



Emerson taught me to see with the mind. 

Next on my shelf came two or three 
volumes of George Eliot's works, from which 
I gained some knowledge and a further 
insight into many philosophical and social 
questions. But my chief debt to George 
Eliot at that time was that she introduced 
me to pleasant characters — nice people — 
and especially to one imaginary young lady 
whom I was in love with one whole winter, 
and it diverted my mind in solitude. A 
good novel is a valuable acquisition, and it 
supplies companionship of a pleasant kind. 

Amongst my small residue of books I must 
name Channing's works. Before I read 
Channing I doubted whether there was a 
God; at least I would rather have believed 
that there were no God. After becoming 



54 A TALK 



acquainted with Charming I could believe 
there was a God, and I was glad to believe 
in Him, for I felt drawn to the good and 
gracious Sovereign of all things. Still, 1 
needed further what I found in F. W. 
Robertson, the British officer in the pulpit 
— bravest, truest of men — who dared to 
speak what he believed at all hazards. From 
Robertson I learned that God is human ; 
that we may have fellowship with Him, 
because He sympathises with us. 

One day as I was looking over my 
mantelshelf library, it suddenly struck me 
that all these authors of mine were here- 
tics — these were dangerous books. Unde- 
signedly I had found stimulus and help 
from teachers who were not credited by 
orthodoxy. And I have since found that 



ON BOOKS. 55 



much of the good to be got from books 
is to be gained from authors often classed 
as dangerous, for these provoke inquiry, and 
exercise one's powers. Towards the end of 
my shelf I had one or two humorous 
works ; chief amongst them all being Mark 
Twain. His humor is peculiar; broad 
exaggeration, a sly simplicity, comical situa. 
tions, and surprising turns of expressions ; but 
to me it has been a genuine fund of humor 
The humorous side of a student's nature needs 
to be considered, and where it is undeveloped, 
it should be cultivated. I have known 
many instances of good students who 
seemed to have no sense of humor. 

I will not recommend any of my favorite 
books to another; they have done me good, 
but they might not suit another man. 



56 A TALK 



Every man must discover his own books ; 
but when he has found what fits in with 
his tastes, what stimulates him to thought, 
what supplies a want in his nature, and 
exalts him in conception and feeling, that 
is the book for the student, be what it 
may. This brings me to speak of 

THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS 

To fall in love with a good book is one 
of the greatest events that can befall us. 
It is to have a new influence pouring itself 
into our life, a new teacher to inspire and 
refine us, a new friend to be by our side 
always, who, when life grows narrow and 
weary, will take us into his wider and 
calmer and higher world. Whether it be 
biography introducing us to some humble 



ON BOOKS. 57 



life made great by duty done ; or history, 
opening vistas into the movements and 
destinies of nations that have passed away; 
or poetry making music of all the common 
things around us, and filling the fields* 
and the skies, and the work of the city 
and the cottage with eternal meanings — 
whether it be these, or story books, or 
religious books, or science, no one can 
become the friend even of one good book 
without being made wiser and better. Do 
not think I am going to recommend any 
such book to you. The beauty of a friend 
is that we discover him. And we must each 
taste the books that are accessible to us for 
ourselves. Do not be disheartened at first 
if you like none of them. That is possibly 
their fault, not yours. But search, and 



58 A TALK 



search till you find what you like. In 
amazingly cheap form — for a few pence 
indeed — almost all the best books are now 
to be had ; and I think everyone owes it as 
a sacred duty to his mind to start a little 
library of his own. How much do we not 
do for our bodies? How much thought and 
money do they not cost us ? And shall we 
not think a little, and pay a little, for the 
clothing and adorning of the imperishable 
mind ? This private library may begin, per- 
haps, with a single volume, and grow at the 
rate of one or two a year; but these well- 
chosen and well mastered, will become such 
a fountain of strength and wisdom that each 
shall be eager to add to his store. A 
dozen books accumulated in this way may 
be better than a whole library. Do not 



ON BOOKS. 59 



be distressed if you do not like time- 
honored books, or classical works, or recom- 
mended books. Choose for yourself; trust 
yourself; plant yourself on your own 
instincts ; that which is natural for us, that 
which nourishes us, and gives us appetite, is 
that which is right for us. We have all 
different minds, and we are all at different 
stages of growth. Some other day we may 
find food in the recommended book, though 
we should possibly starve on it to-day. 
The mind develops and changes, and the 
favorites of this year, also, may one day 
cease to interest us. Nothing better 
indeed can happen to us than to lose 
interest in a book we have often read ; for 
it means that it has done its work upon 
us, and brought us up to its level, and 
taught us all it had to teach. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

Natural Law in the Spiritual World. 
By HENRY DRUMMOND, F.R SE, F.G.S. 

Cloth, title in silver, 438 pages. Price, 50 cts. 

" Natural Law is the latest and most magnificent discovery 
of Science. " 

CONTENTS: 

Preface, Mortification, 

Introduction, Eternal Life, 

Biogenesis, Environment, 

Degeneration, Conformity to Type, 

Growth, Semi-Parasitism, 

Death, Parasitism, 
Classification. 

" Its originality will make it almost a revelation." — Christ- 
ian Union. 

" If you read only one book this year, let it be ' Natural 
Law in the Spiritual World-' " — American Institute of Christ- 
ian Philosophy. 

" This is one of those rare books which find a new point 
of view from which old things themselves become new." — 
Chicago Standard. 

" Too much cannot be said in praise of it, and those who 
fail to read it will suffer a serious loss." — The Churchman. 

" The enchantments of an unspeakably fascinating volume 
by Professor Drummond have had an exhilarating effect each 
time we have opened its pages or thought over its delightful 
contents. " — Clergyman *s Magazine 

"This is a remarkable and important book. The theory 
it enounces may, without exaggeration, be termed a discov- 
ery." — Aberdeen Free Press. 

For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price. 
FOR SALE BY 

John. Knox & Co, Publishers, 

203 West 23D Street, New York. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



TROPICHL HFRICK 

BY 

HENRY DRUM MO ND. 

With six maps and illustrations, gilt title 
and side, umo, red cloth, price $1.50. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 

An Address on I. Corinthians, 13th chapter. 

By HENRY DRUMMOND. 

Leatherette, gilt top, - - - 35 cents. 

The same, with special drawings printed in two colors, beauti- 
fully bound in cloth, gilt top, price $1.00. 

" His words are winged words and fly through the world." 
— Independent. 

" The theme is interesting, the method of presentation ex- 
ceedingly clear." — Observer. 

" It is in Professor Drummond's best vein and we can offer 
no higher praise than that." — Christian Union. 

'* The theme is noble and it is treated with earnestness and 
reverence." — Ave Maria. 

" No more delightful and helpful book has appeared this 
year." — Courier Freeman. 

"A book small in volume but mighty in power. Simple 
and clear in expression." — O, cV N. Test. Student. 

" Broad and healthy is the spirit of this little book." 

— Arena. 
For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price. 
TOR SALE BY 

John Knox & Co., Publishers, 

203 West 23D Street, New York. 



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